Why was the word "dongle" chosen to represent this kind of hardware device?

I can imagine that it was related to the word "dangle"... since dongles tend to dangle - but that's just my hunch and not truly historic.

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) lists the etymology of 'dongle' as "arbitrary"... so no help there.

The OED cites two sources of note:

1981New Scientist 1 Oct. 24/3: Many programs written for the Pet computer make use of a device known as a dongle. The dongle is an extra piece of memory that is plugged into the computer, without which the program refuses to run.

1982MicroComputer Printout Jan. 19/2: The word ‘dongle’ has been appearing in many articles with reference to security systems for computer software [refers to alleged coinage in 1980].

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@Mitch yes, we were discussing it over here, and it didn't have much attention. So I asked a related question in context to people that have the localized-language knowledge. I think this should be part of Programmers.SE, since such domain-language is, as I said, too-localized for a broad English Language site. Similar technology-precedents exit in History.SE as well, and I can link all of this if other mods would find it relevant to transfer back.
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New AlexandriaSep 5 '13 at 18:40

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and, yes, if the question lives here then it is definitely a duplicate. But this site doesn't have as many tech-culture focused people as the sages at Programmers.SE
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New AlexandriaSep 5 '13 at 18:49

I remember encountering the word dongle for the first time around 1980 (in the UK) in a computer magazine (I forget the title) that was about Commodore PETs and the like. It was definitely before 1981. The meaning was the standard one: a piece of hardware which needed to be present before software would run.
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user24964Sep 6 '13 at 14:49

2 Answers
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Dongle has been used as a placeholder name since the 1970s. Its origin is unknown. The American Heritage Dictionary, 4th edition, says it is "probably [an] arbitrary coinage." A 1992 advertisement for Rainbow Technologies (now SafeNet—a dongle vendor in the U.S) claimed the word was derived from the name "Don Gall"—though untrue, this has given rise to an urban myth.

Dongle as the name of a device was used well before 1980 in the telecom industry to refer to BNC cable joiners of either gender.